A REPLY 



M R CHARLES INGERSOLL'S 



"LETTER TO A FRIEND IN A SLAVE STATE/' 



M. RUSSELL THAYER. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

C. SHERMAN & SON, PRINTERS 

18G2. 




A REPLY 



M R CHARLES INGERSOLL'S 



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LETTER TO A FRIEND IN A SLAYE STATE." 



1VL RUSSELL THAYER. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

C. SHERMAN & SON, PRINTERS. 

1862. 

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1- 



"Among the advantages of a confederate republic, enumerated 
by Montesquieu, an important one is, that should a popular insur- 
rection happen in one of the states, the others are able to quell it. 
Should abuses creep into one part, they are reformed by those that 
remain sound." 

James Madison. 

" According to the degree of pleasure and pride we feel in being 
republicans, ought to be our zeal in cherishing the spirit and sup- 
porting the character of federalists." 

James Madison. 

" That there may happen cases in which the national govern- 
ment may be under the necessity of resorting to force, cannot be 
denied. Our own experience has corroborated the lessons taught 
by the examples of other nations, that emergencies of this sort 
will sometimes exist in all societies however constituted. Should 
such emergencies at any time happen under the national govern- 
ment, there could be no remedy but force. The means to be em- 
ployed must be proportioned to the extent of the mischief. 

" An insurrection, whatever may be its cause, eventually endan- 
gers all government." 

Alexander Hamilton. 



4 



My dear Sir : 

I have read attentively your late " Letter to a Friend in 
a Slave State," and have experienced some pleasure from 
the sprightliness of the style, the copiousness of the illus- 
tration, and the vigor which characterizes the greater part 
of the performance. Indeed, I may frankly say, that 
to my mind, it is the hest of the Secession pamphlets 
which have as yet issued from our Northern press. You 
have not employed your time amid the convulsions which 
shake our unhappy country, and in the presence of the 
most important events which have transpired in the world 
since the downfall of Buonaparte, in criticising the rheto- 
rical inelegancies of official dispatches, or stooped to the 
invidious office of sneering at the President and his 
" social meridian," or ridiculing the names of his subordi- 
nates. Your work, such as it is, has a higher aim, and 
has been performed in a more manly manner. This ex- 
cellence I willingly accord it, — that its attack upon the 
Government of your country, if ill-timed and unpatriotic, 
is at any rate fearless and open. If unjust and pernicious, 
it is at least dignified and decorous. If breathing the 
spirit of the political partisan, it nevertheless does not con- 
descend to subjects unworthy of the reflections of the 
patriot. 

The merits to which I have alluded entitle you to a 
reply. While they render the views which you hold only 
the more insidious and dangerous to the public mind, they, 



for that very reason, furnish me with a sufficient apology 
for making that reply. 

It was observed by archdeacon Paley, in his Horse Pau- 
lina?, that amidst the obscurities, the silence, or the contra- 
diction of history, if a Letter can be found, we regard it as 
the discovery of a landmark by which we can correct, 
adjust, or supply the imperfections and uncertainties of 
other accounts. The future historian of the United States, 
if in his researches his eye should fall upon your Letter, 
will, I fear, be in some doubt in regard to the landmark 
which you have left by the roadside of the present time. 
While he will observe that you proclaim yourself the 
friend of the Union, he will at the same time perceive that 
your talents are chiefly devoted to an elaborate apology for 
the traitors who vainly attempt to destroy it ; he will re- 
mark, that while you concede that the war forced upon 
the Government by the insurrection at the South is an 
unavoidable necessity, you at the same time denounce the 
Government for prosecuting it ; that while in your latest 
sentence you express yourself in favor of carrying on the 
war, you at the same time labor to prove that it is hope- 
less in its objects and ruinous in its results — that while 
you counsel conciliation and compromise, you yet stead- 
fastly declare your belief that " the government at Ilich- 
mond will not listen to any terms of arrangement which 
the North could, would, or ought to enter into." Under 
embarrassments so great, the future chronicler of the times 
may well put down your pages in despair, and seek to ad- 
just his difficulties by other standards. 

The key to these glaring inconsistencies into which you 
have fallen, is not difficult to be found. The cause is too 
bad to be benefited by your skill. You dare not defend 
the Southern treason upon the Southern argument. You 
could not defend it upon any other. The origin and mo- 
tives of this rebellion are so clearly written in the history 



of the past, and arc so well understood by the people of 
Pennsylvania, that you could not undertake the arduous 
task of justifying it. You must therefore extenuate it. 
Your sense of justice, too, I may add, would not allow you 
wholly to condemn the war which is waged in defence of 
the Union and the Constitution. At the same time your 
dislike to the Administration to which the government of 
the country has been confided by the people, is so strong, 
and your anxiety in reference to the political results of 
" the next Congressional election" to which you refer, so 
great, that old prejudices have for the time triumphed over 
patriotic impulse; and justice, reason and the truth of 
history, have alike been compelled to give way before the 
exactions of party spirit. True, the war has been forced 
upon the Government; but Mr. Lincoln administers the 
Government ; the Government must be condemned at all 
hazards, and therefore the war must be condemned. 

You declare in your Letter to your friend in a Slave 
State, with a confidence which your sincerity may perhaps 
pardon, that the views which you promulgate are the 
opinions of the people of Pennsylvania. Have you for- 
gotten that the people of Pennsylvania voted by an over- 
whelming majority for Mr. Lincoln, whose political prin- 
ciples you arraign? Is it within your knowledge that 
Pennsylvania has sent to the war a larger force than any 
other State, and that every man of them is a volunteer I 
You cannot be ignorant of the fact that she has contributed 
already more than 100,000 men for the defence of the 
Government. Are you aware that her Legislature has 
formally approved of the war, and pledged the State and 
its resources to its vigorous prosecution X* You have not 
been an inattentive observer of the spirit which animates 
her people. You cannot have forgotten their indignant 

* Resolutions of 18th April, 1861, and 24th January, 1801. 



attitude as they sprang to arms after the insult of the 13th 
of April. You must have witnessed the anxiety with 
which their eyes have followed the flag of their country 
amid the smoke and carnage of battle, the joy which has 
followed in the wake of victory, the gloom which has suc- 
ceeded every reverse. Is this the posture, and are these 
the signs of a people who sympathize with the enemies of 
their country 1 By what warrant, then, do you impute to 
the people of this State the sentiments conveyed in your 
letter to your Southern friend 1 It was by such misrepre- 
sentations of public sentiment at the North that the con- 
spirators at Washington, who planned the rebellion, were 
enabled at the outset to impose upon the credulity of the 
South, and to plunge them into this disastrous war. 

But before I proceed to notice more particularly some 
of the topics upon which you discourse at much length in 
your letter, I must be indulged in one or two observations 
of a general character. In the first place, your attack 
upon the existing Government of the country must, I 
think, strike all candid men as being exceedingly ill-timed 
and unpatriotic at the present moment. Whatever, in 
your opinion, may be the faults of that Government, you 
are aware that it is now engaged in putting down a most 
formidable insurrection against the laws. This great object 
tasks all its resources and demands all its energies. For 
this purpose it labors day and night with unceasing activity. 
In the pursuit of this object, disregarding the lines which 
have hitherto defined political organizations, it has ap- 
pointed to posts of honor and responsibility many distin- 
guished men of your own party. Is it a proper time, then, 
I may be allowed to ask, to endeavor to revive political 
animosities ? Is it the part of patriotism to seek to sow 
disaffection to the Government, to destroy its efficiency, 
and to embarrass its operations when traitors are in the 



field? I know not how it may appear to you, but by the 
people of Pennsylvania the business in which you have 
embarked will, I think, be regarded in a light which will 
bring neither glory to you nor satisfaction to themselves. 
There are times of trial in the history of every nation, 
eventful periods, in which its strength is tried, and upon 
which hangs the very question of its national existence ; 
periods in which its integrity is threatened by external 
force, or in which the elements of internal disorder are 
let loose to upturn the foundations of the State. At 
such times it would seem to be the part of patriotism 
to stand by the Government, to forget for the time all 
minor differences of opinion, to overlook faults (for ad- 
ministrations, which are but men, must sometimes err), 
to lay aside the prejudices of party, and to give our best 
energies to the assistance of the Government in main- 
taining the common weal. Such a period has now arrived 
in the history of the country. The very fact of our na- 
tional existence is the question in issue. It is not our 
fault that the method of trial is the ordeal of battle. It 
is now to be determined, not only for ourselves, but for 
those who are to come after us, whether our Constitution 
is a band of steel or a wisp of hay ; whether the plan of 
Government framed for the people of the United States, 
with so much care and deliberation, by the venerated 
assembly in which your ancestor sat, is a plan which com- 
bines strength with utility, or whether its first severe trial 
is to prove the worthlessness of their work. In a word, 
the question is, can we preserve the benign and free Go- 
vernment transmitted to us by our fathers, or shall it be 
thrown down by insurrectionary violence. At such a time, 
who are the Greeks upon the Circus benches while the 
enemy is at the gates, they who support the Government, 
or they who find amusement in exposing its faults I Surely, 



8 

if at such a time absolute neutrality is not a virtue, active 
sympathy with the enemy is something less. 

There is another feature in your performance which re- 
quires a preliminary remark. An effort plainly appears to 
disparage one section of your country. You dwell with 
especial pleasure upon the intolerance and bigotry of New 
England. You recount with much minuteness of detail 
the opposition of Massachusetts to the War of 1812. You 
linger long around the famous Hartford Convention, and 
you invoke afresh those ghosts of former contests, the Per- 
sonal Liberty Bills of the East. You do not advert to the 
fact, that Pennsylvania too had her Personal Liberty Bill, 
and always has had since her celebrated declaration of 
1780.* New England requires no defence at my hands. 

* " When we contemplate our abhorrence of that condition to 
which the arms and tyranny of Great Britain were exerted to re- 
duce us, when we look hack upon the variety of dangers to which 
we have heen exposed, and how miraculously our wants in many 
instances have heen supplied, and our deliverance wrought when 
even hope and human fortitude have become unequal to the con- 
flict, we are unavoidably led to a serious and grateful sense of the 
manifold blessings which we have undeservedly received from the 
hand of that Being from whom every good and perfect gift cometh. 
Impressed with these ideas, wc conceive that it is our dut} r , and 
we rejoice that it is in our power, to extend a portion of that free- 
dom to others, which hath heen extended to us, and release them from 
that state of thraldom to which we ourselves were tyrannically 
doomed, and from which we have now every prospect of being de- 
livered. It is not for us to inquire why, in the creation of man- 
kind, the inhabitants of the several parts of the earth, were distin- 
guished by a difference in feature or complexion. It is sufficient 
to know, that all are the work of an Almighty Hand. We find in 
the distribution of the human species that the most fertile as well 
as the most barren parts of the earth are inhabited by men of com- 
plexions different from ours, and from each other ; from whence we 
may reasonably as well as religiously infer, that He who placed 
them in their various situations, hath extended equally His care 
and protection to all, and that it becometh not us to counteract 



It is, as we all know, the home of virtue, of intelligence, 
and of law. Her commerce, and the patient industry of 
her sons has filled her homes with thrifty happiness, and 
the world with the products of her ingenious toil. Her 
hand has ever been ready in the cause of human progress ; 
her foot ever foremost in the march of freedom. She was 
first at Lexington in 1775. She was first at Baltimore in 
1861. She was at Yorktown in 1781. She is at York- 
town in 1862. It was not my lot to have been born upon 
the soil of New England. On the contrary I may state, if 
it will at all recommend me to your esteem, that, although 
I do not, like your correspondent, reside in a Slave State, 
I was born in one, and in that one which you appear 
to fear may be supplanted in the affections of Pennsyl- 
vania by Massachusetts. But there are in Pennsylvania, 
many descendants of New England families. Our northern 
tier of counties was, as you know, settled by New Eng- 
land people, and many of the most illustrious citizens of 
the town we live in were, as you are aware, natives of New 
England, or the sons of such. You are yourself, if I am 
correctly informed, lineally removed, but by a single gene- 
ration, from a distinguished Connecticut ancestry. Vir- 
ginia is not the enemy of Massachusetts. They have 

His mercies. We esteem it a peculiar blessing granted to us, that 
we are enabled this day to add one more step to universal civiliza- 
tion, by removing as much as possible the sorrows of those, who 
have lived in undeserved bondage, and from which, by the assumed 
authority of the Kings of Great Britain, no effectual legal relief 
could be obtained. Weaned by a long course of experience from 
those narrow prejudices and partialities we had imbibed, we find 
our hearts enlarged with kindness and benevolence towards men 
of all conditions and nations, and we conceive ourselves at this 
particular period, extraordinarily called upon, by the blessings 
which we have received, to manifest the sincerity of our profes- 
sion, and to give a substantial proof of our gratitude." — Preamble to 
Act 1 March, 1780, abolishing Slavery in Pennsylvania. 



10 

been friends in many a contest. Virginia stands in no 
need of your praise, or Massachusetts of mine. We should 
be proud to be citizens of a country which embraces them 
both, and inheritors of a history which both have made 
famous by deeds of virtue, magnanimity, and valor. 
Why then should the present opportunity be embraced 
to arouse sectional antipathies, to decry one extremity of 
the Union, or to express invidious preferences for another ? 
The struggle we are engaged in is for the common benefit. 
The men of Massachusetts are shoulder to shoulder with 
the men of Pennsylvania in the field. The blood of Win- 
throp mingles with that of Greble on the plains of Hamp- 
ton. Loyal men everywhere are astir. From the Cum- 
berland to the St. Croix they swarm to the support of the 
Constitution and the Union. Shall we who stay at home 
follow them with our prayers and blessings, with words of 
cheer and kindly deeds, or shall we seek to sow distrust, 
dislike, and dissension at home, while they, amid privation 
and death, maintain the flag on hardfought fields ? 

But to come now to the main topic of your discourse. 
Its aim, as you declare it, is to show that conciliation should 
be the policy of the Government ; or, as you put it in ano- 
ther place, " The question for the country is, war or com- 
promise ?" Let it be borne in mind that the question is 
not who is to blame for the war, though that is not a ques- 
tion admitting of any doubt, although you vainly attempt 
to transfer the guilt from the true conspirators to imaginary 
ones. But the question is, whether the rebellion shall be 
put down by force of arms, or whether we shall trust to 
offers of conciliation to effect it. You advocate the latter 
opinion, and to sustain it, you endeavor to prove that the 
triumph of the Federal arms, and the restoration of law, 
order, and the Constitution in the Southern States, are im- 
possibilities. You do not, it is true, suggest any terms of 
compromise yourself, or say to whom they are to be pro- 



11 

posed. You declare the opinion that no terms which could 
be offered, would be accepted by what you call " the go- 
vernment at Richmond." To whom then are the terms of 
compromise to be offered 1 To the people % They are pow- 
erless. They are fast bound in the chains of a military 
tyranny. It would be as much as the life of any one of 
them is worth to speak of the possibility of any compro- 
mise which would embrace the idea of Federal union. 
The only people in the South who have it in their power 
to- entertain your offers, are at Yorktown, at Corinth, and 
similar places ; but they are people with guns in their 
hands, living in curious places with mud walls around 
them, and looking out of windows that have no glass in 
them. Would you make your compromise resolutions to 
them? Try it. If you do, you will be referred to the 
chiefs of these interesting communities, who will refer 
you again to Richmond. But at Richmond, your game, 
as you admit, is blocked. You cannot move. Recog- 
nition or nothing ; independence or the last ditch is there 
the only countersign which will enable you to pass. That 
this is true your argument admits, as indeed it could 
not but do, for they have themselves, in their mock Con- 
gress and rebel gatherings, expressly so defined their posi- 
tion. 

Rut if you should succeed at last in finding any medium 
by which you could communicate your offers to the people, 
what is the compromise you would propose % You have 
not told us in your letter, and until you do, we have de- 
rived little benefit from your suggestion. Your attach- 
ment for the Union is so great that you certainly would 
propose no terms which would compromise the unity of the 
States. You could not of course expect any administra- 
tion, even a Republican one, to do that. What then would 
you offer 1 Let us have your proposition. Speak out your 
"amicable adjustment." You are silent. You cannot 



12 



offer independence and division. Yon feel that there is 
nothing else worth offering. Yet you advise the President 
to write Conciliation and Compromise upon the colors of 
the Union. Your readers will probably doubt the efficacy 
of these fine phrases upon the enemy, unless indeed the 
colors are followed closely, as they now are, by Parrott and 
Dahlgren batteries. 

It is too late and too early for conciliation. The time 
has past. The time has not come. As for compromise, if 
you intend by it the surrender of the principles of the 
Constitution, you must determine which is the best, — the 
Constitution maintained and established by war, or peace 
without the Constitution, and therefore without govern- 
ment, and therefore with war. It is idle to talk about the 
Constitution, and at the same time to propose to yield it 
up to traitors by conciliation. The Constitution cannot be 
preserved by conciliation against bayonets, cannon, and 
300,000 soldiers. History teaches that under such cir- 
cumstances as those in which we now find ourselves, force is 
the only safe conciliator ; numbers, skill, and cannon, the 
only referees. For a Government to maintain its authority 
is the condition of the existence of its authority, and there- 
fore of itself; or as it is tersely expressed by Sir James 
Mackintosh : " Every State must maintain its honor, be- 
cause it is essential to its safety." Measures may be sur- 
rendered, principles of administration may be compromised, 
but a compromise of an established and invaded Constitu- 
tion in the presence and under the duress of arms, is not a 
compromise but a surrender. It is insurrection victorious ; 
that is, it is revolution. 

The cases which you put from history are singularly in- 
felicitous to your argument. It was no part of the Con- 
stitution of the Germanic Empire that Protestants should 
be burnt. It required no sacrifice of it therefore on the 
part of the Emperor that religious toleration should be ex- 



13 

ended to his subjects. George III lost his American 
colonies, not by enforcing the British Constitution, but by 
violating one of its fundamental principles, viz., that re- 
presentation and taxation are reciprocal. James II was 
driven from the throne, not for defending the Constitution, 
but for conspiring against it. Napoleon Buonaparte ruined 
himself, not by adhering to the first principles of govern- 
ment, but by violating them. A compromise with his 
foreign enemies would have involved no violation of fixed 
principles, but a return to them. The Constitution of the 
United States was formed, it is true, by compromises ; but is 
it a corollary from that that it must be broken by com- 
promises, or, in other words, that it is to be preserved by 
breaking if? 

The advice you give to the people of the United States 
is, to compromise in some unmentioned manner and upon 
some impossible terms (for you do not venture to hint at 
them), with bands of armed insurgents, who have plun- 
dered the public property, destroyed the peace and pros- 
perity of the country, and slain and subjected to cruel tor- 
ture many of its loyal citizens. Men who have set up a 
mock government, which they make the agent of their 
despotism; who have delegated a pretended authority to 
bands of desperate men to burn and destroy our ships ; who 
have slandered your Government in every court of Europe ; 
who have robbed the arsenals, the dock-yards, and the trea- 
sury ; who have called to their bloody work the savages of 
our Western frontier ;* who boasted that they would burn 
Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and call the roll of 
their slaves on the spot on which Warren fell. They are 
men who, driven from one cover to another by the soldiers 

* Have you read the order of General Pike, thanking his savage 
allies for their <jallantri/ in the battle of Pea Ridge ? If so, did you 
read what these Indians did at Pea Ridge? 



14 

of the Union, still stand with arms in their hands defying 
the Government and the law, spreading desolation wher- 
ever they pass, and mingling the innocent and the guilty, 
the loyal and disloyal, in a common ruin. Such are the 
men in behalf of whom your sympathies are aroused, whose 
guilt you palliate, before whom you would throw down 
your arms, whom you would tempt to their duty by the 
empty sound of conciliation, and for whom you are con- 
tent to denounce the constituted authorities of your coun- 
try. What does it signify that many sincere persons in the 
South, led astray by the acts of designing men, uphold and 
maintain this course of conduct'? This only shows that 
Yancey and his fellow-conspirators succeeded at last in 
their plans of " firing the Southern heart, and precipitat- 
ing" their dupes into rebellion. Shall loyal men on that 
account give way to their insane fury, and suffer the Go- 
vernment to be torn down, or to have its heart eaten out 
by your nostrum of conciliation 1 

But you say the question is not between men, but be- 
tween nations ; and so says Jefferson Davis. I respectfully 
deny it. The Constitution is not a league between States, 
but a Government for the people. Such was its design 
in its origin. Such it is in the plan of its operation, 
and in the mode of its administration. Government im- 
plies the power of making laws. The laws of the United 
States are made not for the States, but for the people of 
the United States. The Constitution is not a Constitution 
made by States, but, as it declares, by the people of the 
United States. Says Mr. Madison, in the end of that 
able chapter recounting the failures of ancient confedera- 
cies : " Experience is the oracle of truth, and where its 
responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and 
sacred. The important truth which it unequivocally pro- 
nounces in the present case is, that a sovereignty over so- 



15 



vereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for 
communities, as contradistinguished from individuals ; as it 
is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the 
order and ends of civil polity."* Says Mr. Hamilton in 
enumerating the advantages of the proposed Constitution 
over the system of the Confederation which preceded it : 
" The great and radical vice in the construction of the ex- 
isting Confederation, is in the principle of legislation for 
States or Governments in their corporate or collective ca- 
pacities, and as contradistinguished from the individuals of 
whom they consist ;" and thence he proceeds to argue that 
by adopting the Constitution we will " incorporate into one 
plan those ingredients which may be considered as forming 
the characteristic difference between a league and a govern- 
ment," and " extend the authority of the Union to the 
persons of the citizens — the only proper objects of govern- 
ment."f And again, in a passage which is strikingly appo- 
site to the present occasion : " However gross a heresy it 
may be to maintain that a party to a compact has a right 
to revoke that compact, the doctrine itself has had respect- 
able advocates. The possibility of a question of this nature 
proves the necessity of laying the foundations of our national 
Government deeper than in the mere sanction of delegated 
authority. The fabric of American empire ought to rest 
on the solid basis of the consent of the people. The 
streams of national power ought to flow immediately from 
that pure, original fountain of all legitimate authority."* 

The United States are engaged in a war not with States, 
but with armed bands of individuals who set the law at 
defiance. It does not a whit alter the fact that these indi- 
viduals have obtained, in some States, the control of the 
local government, and use it for purposes hostile to the 
National Government. Still the war is against rebels, and 

* Federalist, No. 20. f lb. No. 15. % lb. No. 22. 



16 

not against States. The Federal Government seeks no 
interference with the States, so long as they continue in 
their proper orbits. So long as their powers are exercised 
within the sphere of their legitimate influence, and not 
used by rebels to overthrow the Constitution of the people, 
they might administer their domestic affairs without inter- 
ruption or hindrance from the General Government, as 
they have done for more than three-quarters of a century. 
But if their powers are seized upon by insurgents, and 
employed to overthrow the Constitution of the common 
government, their rights are in no wise infringed by pre- 
venting such a perversion of their powers, and by re- 
straining such unconstitutional action. If, in order to do 
this, it is necessary to displace from their usurped power 
the agents who so wield it, who can lawfully complain of 
the action of the General Government I If it be true, as 
the Constitution declares in its Sixth Article, that this 
Constitution is the supreme law of the land, what other 
law shall be allowed to override it % Have the people or- 
dained a government with no means of preserving it, or a 
supreme law with no sanctions to defend it \ No. The 
Constitution is not a league. It is a law. It is not only 
a law ; it is the supreme law. They who violate this law 
are responsible as individuals for their crime. They cannot 
shelter themselves under a usurped authority, or the pre- 
tended regularity of conventional or legislative action 
which violates the Constitution. Such action is an un- 
lawful exercise of authority, and unlawful authority is no 
authority. The parties to the war, then, are not States, 
but individuals, on the one part, and the Government on 
the other. It matters not for the argument how numerous 
these individuals may be. They are still individuals. If 
numerous enough to overthrow the common Government 
they effect a revolution. If not, they are baffled insurgents, 
guilty of treason. 



17 



Here let me pause for a moment to remark upon a sub- 
ject by no means necessary to the consideration of the 
question we are upon, but from which you appear to derive 
considerable satisfaction. You say that Mr. Lincoln, 
twelve years ago, declared himself in favor of the doctrine 
of the right of revolution. This is urged for one of two 
purposes, either to disparage the President for mere selfish 
party ends, or as an apology for the insurrection. I am 
unwilling to impute to you the former motive. For the 
latter purpose it obviously amounts to nothing as an argu- 
ment. But I must be allowed to say that your treatment 
of this subject displays a considerable want of fairness and 
of candor. The subject of Mr. Lincoln's discussion in the 
debate alluded to was the revolution of Mexico against 
Spain and of Texas against Mexico. Because Mr. Lincoln 
maintained the right of revolution against bad government, 
it does not follow that revolution or insurrection against a 
good one is justifiable. Besides, it is quite apparent that 
Mr. Lincoln's opinions in 1848 are quite aside from the 
merits of the present question. To justify the insurrec- 
tion, or to apologize for it, you must show that they have 
undertaken it for justifiable reasons. This you do not 
attempt. 

Nor do you advance a single step in your advocacy of 
rebellion when you refer to the Virginia and Kentucky 
Resolutions of 1798, the New England troubles of 1812-14, 
or the South Carolina Nullification of 1832. Discontent 
with measures of state is the fruitful parent of disorder. It 
has prevailed at times in all States. It has many times 
shaken governments to their foundations ; sometimes over- 
thrown them. But you cannot thence derive either a jus- 
tification or an apology for the present rebellion. There 
existed no grievance which either justified or excused this 
ultima ratio, — the right of revolution. At the very time 
the conspiracy took form and substance, the question of 

2 



18 



slavery or freedom in the Territories was a question entirely 
in the hands of the South and their Northern ally, the 
Democratic party. Combined they had a clear majority in 
Congress. They were in possession of the National Legis- 
lature. They were in possession of the National Court. 
What, then, had they to fear from the principles of the 
President 1 Nothing whatever. Nor was it fear which 
set them in motion. The election of Mr. Lincoln was, as 
is notorious, a circumstance anxiously expected and greed- 
ily seized upon by the conspirators to commence their 
work of " precipitation." The pretext was, alas, but too 
successful in the hands of the Cotton State politicians. 
From their secret conclaves in Washington they raised their 
false and hypocritical clamor of danger to the South, and 
propagated it by every art of deception and alarm. The 
cabal in South Carolina responded readily to their signal. 
The imbecility of President Buchanan, the collusion of 
several of his ministers, and the treachery of the Vice- 
President, were unfortunately propitious coincidents to 
their nefarious schemes. They were accomplished. The 
Southern people were successfully deceived, and were 
ruined by the representatives whom they had chosen to 
guard their rights ! The man who plays the part of the 
mock-president at Richmond, at that time a Senator, with 
the oath of fealty to the Constitution yet fresh upon his 
tongue, was, as now appears by the letter of Senator Yulee, 
the principal conspirator of them all. Had he anything to 
gain by his treason 1 You shall decide. 

It is in vain, therefore, that you strive to extenuate, upon 
the grounds you mention, the guilt of those who have made 
war upon the Government of their country. There are no 
doubt many sincere people at the South who support the 
rebellion. But they have been deceived, and in their de- 
ception is the only palliation of their course. That decep- 
tion will as assuredly be exposed, as that truth will 



19 



triumph over falsehood, and time expose the contrivances 
of the wicked. 

But the war for the Union and the Constitution, you 
say, cannot be successful, and you enumerate many difficul- 
ties, some of which, I admit, are great. Others are rapidly 
disappearing before the crowding events of the day. But 
there is one sentence in your letter which sweeps away all 
your theories : " The South," you say, " it would be strange 
indeed were it otherwise, will make peace, if it be honor- 
able and fair, not following their programme and omitting 
disunion." No reasonable man can expect that that dispo- 
sition, which you so confidently predict, will be extensively 
developed, until time has decided the strength of the con- 
tending parties. Until that has been done, and the leaders, 
who for selfish purposes, direct the storm, are driven from 
their positions of power and influence, there is nobody who 
can be treated with. When that is accomplished, one of the 
difficulties, and the greatest which you enumerate, viz., 
"the two governments, the Government at Washington 
and the government at Richmond," will be removed. 
There will then be as heretofore, but one Government and 
one people. When the Government is triumphant and the 
Constitution vindicated, the Southern people will enjoy all 
their constitutional rights. It is the fault of their false 
leaders if they are deprived of them now. Their betrayal 
lies at their own door, and not at that of the Government. 

You charge upon the Republican party the present dis- 
asters of the country, and this, as I have already said, seems 
to be the key to your attack upon the Government, your 
opposition to the war for the Union and the Constitu- 
tion, your undisguised enmity to the North, and your 
sympathy with Secession. It appears to me, that in a 
crisis like the present, the discussion of party politics 
should be laid aside, and our inquiries directed not so 
much to the consideration of who is to blame, as to the 



20 

means of maintaining the Constitution and putting down 
the rebellion against it. You are of a different opinion, and 
think that the cause of the country is to be best served by 
a return to the arts of political controversy and the re- 
newal of partisan strife. If you would not have us sit 
upon the benches of the Circus, while the enemy is at the 
gates, you have no objection to a fight among ourselves in 
the arena. I do not design to follow you in this example. 
Yet justice to a great and powerful party, and the truth 
of history, render it not improper that I should call to 
your recollection a few forgotten facts. The beginning of 
the difficulty, by your own showing, was the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise. Who repealed that measure and set 
the country aflame 1 The truth of history compels me to 
answer, — the Democratic party of the North assisted by 
Southern votes. Who endeavored to force Slavery upon 
Kansas against the wishes of her people I A Democratic 
President. W T ho was the imbecile or willing nurse of Se- 
cession at its birth'? A Democratic President. Who 
leads a brigade of traitors now ] A Democratic Vice-Pre- 
sident, who was also the nominee of a Democratic conven- 
tion for the Presidency. Who sits in the mournful gloom 
of the palace of " the government at Richmond," or 

" walks with uneasy steps 



Over the burning marie?" 

A Democratic Senator. Who has been in modern times 
the foster-mother of Slavery, yielding to all its imperious 
exactions and teaching it, that by long custom it had the 
right to rule, and that the Government was its rightful in- 
heritance 1 The Democratic party. But I forbear. 

The Republican party is neither an Abolition party or 
in the possession of Abolitionists. Its existence is of recent 
date. Its history, therefore, and the causes which forced 
it into being, are too well known to require repetition 



21 



here. Its leading principles, as I understand them, are, 
1st. Constitutional justice to all the States, and non-inter- 
ference in the Slave States. 2d. Prohibition of the exten- 
sion of Slavery to free territory belonging- to the United 
States. This last power they understand to be conferred 
upon Congress by the Constitution. The Breckenridge 
fragment of the Democratic party denied it ; but when 
they appealed to the people, the verdict was against them, 
and they made war upon the people. It is in vain that 
the enemies of the Republican party attempt to pervert 
the truth of history, and to lay upon them the fault of the 
war. Excepting that the representative of their principles 
had been elevated by the people to the chief executive 
office, they were powerless at the moment of the war ; for 
in Congress they were in a minority. The war was not 
made by slaveholders, and therefore, was not made by those 
whose chief interest it might seem to be (though really it 
was not) to oppose the Republican party. It was made by 
ambitious and unprincipled politicians, who deceived and 
betrayed the slaveholding interest into approval of a step 
the most insane and desperate that could have been taken. 
Nor is it true, as you charge, that the Republican party 
are for the Union without the Constitution. They have 
no such silly creed. They maintain the Constitution — the 
whole Constitution — not perhaps as you understand it, nor 
in the manner in which your late candidate for the Presi- 
dency is now maintaining it, but as the fathers who made 
it understood it. They have never pretended to any right 
of interference whatever with the domestic institutions of 
the Slave States. On the contrary they have by word and 
act continually disclaimed it. The recent message of the 
President to Congress is but a fresh and reiterated avowal 
of the same principle. On the other hand, they find in the 
Constitution no warrant for planting the institution of 
Slavery by authority of law in the Territories of the United 



22 

States already free. They do find that the Constitution 
has delegated to Congress authority to make laws for the 
Territories belonging to the United States, and to exercise 
exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over the Dis- 
trict of Columbia, and all other places which are the pro- 
perty of the United States. Their principles are not ag- 
gressive: they are conservative. Their field of action is 
within the Constitution, not beyond it. 

Your ingenious use of the vote upon the Holman reso- 
lution, which in your Letter you evidently consider your 
ace of trumps, proves nothing to the contrary. That reso- 
lution was voted down, not because the Republican party 
do not acquiesce in the principle which it embodies (for 
they have avowed that principle over and over again), but 
simply because it was regarded as a totally unnecessary 
declaration, an exhibition of weakness, and an ill-timed 
attempt to treat with traitors who were levying war against 
the Union, and who had repeatedly declared that they were 
in arms, not to compel a redress of grievances, but to set 
up an independent Government. 

You must be aware that on the 24th January, 1861, the 
Republican* Legislature of your own State passed the fol- 
lowing resolution, which was approved by a Republican 
Governor : 

"Resolved, that the people of Pennsylvania entertain and 
" desire to cherish the most fraternal sentiments for their 
" brethren of other States, and are ready now, as they ever 
" have been, to co-operate in all measures needful for their 
"welfare, security, and happiness, and the full enjoyment of 
" all their rights under the Constitution which makes us 
" one people ; that while they cannot surrender their love 

* The Legislature was constituted as follows : Senate, 27 re- 
publicans, G Democrats; House, 71 Republicans, 29 Democrats. 
Republican majority in Senate. 21 ; in the House, 42. 



23 

<■'• of liberty, inherited from the founders of their State, 
" sealed with the blood of the Revolution, and witnessed in 
" the history of their legislation, and while they claim the 
''observance of all their rights under the Constitution, they 
" nevertheless maintain now, as they have ever done, the 
" Constitutional rights of the people of the Slaveholding 
" States, to the uninterrupted enjoyment of their own do- 
" mestic institutions." 

The principles of this resolution are the principles of the 
Republican party. They have reiterated them on every 
important occasion, and no sophistry can place them in a 
different attitude. 

Equally unfounded is your charge against the Adminis- 
tration, of a want of activity and vigor at the outset of 
the rebellion. In circumstances of embarrassment and 
equal peril no Administration in any country ever dis- 
played more vigor combined with judicious discretion. 
At the first moment in which it acceded to power, it found 
upon its hands the war which the weakness and incompe- 
tency of Mr. Buchanan had left as a legacy to his country, 
when he retired from office. The public property had 
been seized, and the public law defied. Insurrection and 
disorder had developed into life with tropical rapidity 
during the last days of an Administration the most igno- 
minious which any country ever beheld. Worst of all, the 
national spirit had been demoralized by an exhibition of 
weakness and vice unparalleled in the history of the coun- 
try. Then for the first time was witnessed in our country 
the spectacle of a cabinet minister engaged in plundering 
its treasury, and arming its enemies, while another, aban- 
doning his duties, publicly conspired with the traitors who 
were planning the overthrow of the Government. Shame 
and inability to cope with the flood of wickedness which 
surrounded him, had driven from his place the venerable 
and upright Secretary of State, while the President, like a 



24 

man in a dream, permitted the ship of state to drift help- 
less and rudderless to ruin. 

Truly, if we were saved from the anarchy which seemed 
inevitable, it was owing to the goodness of Divine Pro- 
vidence, which interposed in our behalf. Such were the 
circumstances in which Mr. Lincoln found the country on 
the 4th of March, 1861. If any man shall say that he 
has not honestly and patriotically labored to restore the 
authority of the Constitution, and to redeem the country 
from the disorders in which he found it, he will say what 
is opposed to the truth of history. 

Was ever a man placed in circumstances of so great 
difficulty and responsibility, and acquitted himself with 
more constancy and courage 1 Look back upon the May 
of 1861. What do you behold 1 The insurgents in pos- 
session of every Southern fort, in possession of the border 
States, our commerce at the mercy of rebel privateers, our 
capital besieged by traitors, our Government without sol- 
diers, without arms, without ships, without money. Look 
again upon the May of 1862. You behold in the field an 
army of 700,000 men, well armed, well equipped, well dis- 
ciplined ; a line of armed ships from Cape Charles to the 
Bio Grande, the border States redeemed, Louisiana in our 
possession, every rebel port in our power, the traitors driven 
from Washington, driven from Missouri, driven from Ken- 
tucky, driven from Western Tennessee, driven from North- 
ern and Western Virginia,* driven from Eastern Carolina, 
driven from Florida, and the rebellion driven to die in the 
lair in which it was hatched ; our arms everywhere trium- 
phant, our flag everywhere victorious, our credit unim- 
paired. 

We have exchanged fear and doubt for courage and 

* As my letter goes to you, the news comes that they fly from 
Yorktown and Corinth. 



25 

confidence, danger for security, rebel boastings for rebel 
despair, uncertainty abroad for friendly encouragement. 
This may not in your opinion be worth throwing up your 
hat for. To those whose hope it is to see the Federal 
Constitution maintained, and the nationality of our people 
preserved, it appears differently. 

Is it nothing to have accomplished thus much ? Is the 
man, under whose lead the people, rallying to their Govern- 
ment, have achieved these great results, to be charged by 
you with want of force, and his advisers with want of 
virtue ? If you were the historian of the time, and if, like 
Mr. Allison, you were to decorate each chapter with high- 
sounding apothegms founded on the facts you relate, what 
a singular philosophy you would eliminate from a twelve 
months' narrative of the w T ar ! 

But you say you see no signs of Union sentiment, or re- 
turning loyalty at the South. Nor did you see much of it 
in Missouri, before the enemy was driven out, or in South- 
ern Kentucky, or in Tennessee. You did not even sus- 
pect it in New Orleans, until you read the correspondence 
between the Mayor and Commodore Farragut, when you 
learned by the written admission of the former that the old 
flag was received with every demonstration of joy, by a 
crowd of people, who were fired upon for it by the traitors 
who dared not face our sailors and marines. We arc not 
to expect manifestations of Union sentiment, when it is un- 
derstood that it is to be bought at such a price as it brought 
in New Orleans before its evacuation by General Lovel. 
Since he was driven out, we are told that a large meeting 
of Union citizens has been held, which was characterized 
by the most enthusiastic demonstrations of joy. 

There are loyal men in the South, but it were in vain to 
expect them to give any sign under the terrors of conscrip- 
tion and martial law. The South is in a state of military 
bondage. Her loyal men would speak, but they dare not. 

3 



26 

lielieve them from that bondage, drive out the armed trai- 
tors who oppress their liberties, and you will see whether 
there be not men in the South, as well as in the North, 
who prefer liberty to despotism, security to oppression, 
peace and plenty to fratricidal war and famine. When 
you have done that, then bring forward your terms of con- 
ciliation, and let them be most large and liberal. Let 
them be such as brothers should offer to brothers. Let 
them be full of kindness and generosity. The people of 
the North will then follow you in that direction as fast as 
you can run. 

But the authority of the Constitution must be first re- 
stored. The armies of the insurgents must be first crushed. 
In this great work the President and the country are now 
engaged. The question is not now one of parties, but of 
self-preservation. It is a question of the continuance of 
constitutional liberty on this continent. It is a time to 
look forward, not backward. It is a time not to sow dis- 
trust and dissension, but to encourage confidence and 
union. 

On which side of the great struggle do you stand ? Will 
you stand by the country, or will you follow still the for- 
tunes of the brigadier % Are you for the Union and the 
law, or for disunion and against the law % If for the former, 
do you aid them by raking up the embers of party strife, 
by seeking to disparage the Government, and by sympa- 
thizing with rebellion 1 If for the latter, would it not be 
the part of candor so to declare yourself? Would not the 
frankness of such a declaration be preferable to an ambi- 
guous loyalty by as much as an open enemy is to be pre- 
ferred to a secret foe % 

Philadelphia, May 5, 1862. 



* 



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